• Sign Of A Tech Comeback: Domain Name Commands Big Bucks
  One more sign the technology sector is rebounding: An Internet domain name is again commanding seven figures
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12/26/2003

• Consumeractive: Domain name pain
  What happens when your domain name isn't re-registered
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12/24/2003

• Signs of Recovery: Domain Names Once Again Fetch Top Dollar
  One more sign the technology sector is rebounding: An Internet domain name is again commanding seven figures.
  Last week, a Florida man sold men.com for $1.3 million, a healthy profit over the $15,000 he paid for it in 1997.
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12/23/2003

• Court Bars Canadian Company from Misleading Consumers in Marketing of Internet Domain Name Services
  The Federal Trade Commission has requested that a federal district court enjoin Domain Registry of America, Inc., an Internet domain name re-seller, from making misrepresentations in the marketing of its domain name registration services and require it to pay redress to consumers. According to the FTC, the company told consumers that their domain registrations were expiring, leading many consumers unwittingly to switch their domain name registrar. The company also allegedly did not disclose that it would charge a processing fee to consumers if their transfer request was not competed – for any reason – and failed to provide consumers refunds in a timely manner. Under the terms of the stipulated final order announced today, Domain Registry of America (DROA), based in Ontario, Canada, may be required to provide redress to up to 50,000 consumers, is prohibited from engaging in similar conduct in the future, and is subject to stringent monitoring by the Commission to ensure its compliance with the court order.
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• Choosing a Domain Name for Optimization Purposes
  A web site's URL can serve many purposes. One of those purposes is to improve the site's visibility and rankings on the search engines
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12/20/2003

• .pro Remains .proVisional
  .Pro-bably Never - Remember the December 7th "go live" date for .pro registrations? That was the "real" live date announced after the launch was delayed from April to August to September. You guessed it: delayed again
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12/19/2003

• Pot-linked senator domain names de-activated
  More than 100 World Wide Web domains belonging to a group that linked Florida senators’ names to a marijuana seed seller were de-activated Thursday and Friday. The same group has attempted in the past to attach Florida congressmen to a political group promoting white rights. Friends of Chantal, an organization in Mossyrock, Wash., bought the names of a dozen Florida state senators in January as Internet domains names. Those domains were then linked to Overgrow.com, a World Wide Web site that sells marijuana seeds from Canada
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12/17/2003

• ICANN approves six user community groups
  In a first step toward giving individual users a voice in how the Internet is run, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved six community user groups in three regions
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• Hong Kong Companies Criticize New Domain Name Registration Plans
  Website owners in Hong Kong have expressed outrage at plans unveiled by the Hong Kong Domain Name Registration Company to launch a .hk domain on January 5.
  Current domain name designations in Hong Kong inclde .com.hk, .edu.hk, and .org.hk, and many website and business owners have argued that they are happy with these categories, and resent being forced to pay again to protect their brand
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12/12/2003

• UN Meeting Excludes ICANN
  ICANN president forced to leave
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• Will the World Summit Reinvent ICANN?
  Unexpectedly, ICANN and Internet governance emerged as one the the central issues of the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
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12/11/2003

• Internet Business on the Upswing Increased Domain Activity
  A leading internet domain registrar announced it has seen a substantial surge in domain resales, registration, transfers and activation - a trend that, coupled with strong online advertising sales and record levels of attendance at a major industry trade show, indicate a rebound in the Internet business.
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• Berlin fences off domain hijacker
  Now that his cabinet approved the Information Society Germany 2006 action plan, which calls for 75 per cent of Germans over the age of 14 to become Internet users within the next three years, chancellor Gerhard Schröder won back the domain name kanzlerschroeder.de (chancellorshroeder.de)
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12/10/2003

• China promotes own Internet domain
  Local operators have been encouraged to adopt "cn", China's national domain for domestic Websites, and so far the number of Chinese Websites using "cn" has exceeded 300,000, a spokesman for the Internet Bureau of the StateCouncil Press Office said here Wednesday
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• Man Admits Luring Children to Porn Sites
  A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to 49 federal charges he used misspellings of Internet domain names like Disneyland, Teletubbies, and Britney Spears to lure children to pornographic Web sites
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12/09/2003

• This name domain could be Guv's bane
  This name domain could be Guv's bane
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12/05/2003

• ASA slaps .eu domain name seller
  Cambridge-based firm warned against claiming to be an accredited domain seller
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12/04/2003

• WIPO Poobah Uses T-word
  Kamil Idris, director-general of WIPO -- an organization to which ICANN's prostrations have made a mockery of Jon Postel's principle of deference to existing, neutral authoritative sources -- has hopped on the "terrorist" bandwagon
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12/03/2003

• Domain registry site gets hacked
  The Global Name Registry confirmed that its .name Web site was hacked over the weekend, blaming the attack on the company's move to relaunch its services
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12/02/2003

• OFT cracks down on dodgy domain sellers
  The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is to continue to crack down on dodgy domain sellers who pressure companies into registering domains.
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• Why it's time to rein in ICANN
  What happens when you get lost on the Internet? That question is hardly theoretical. It has become the basis of a major Internet regulation feud, one that might determine who shapes the next era of the Net
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12/01/2003

• Misleading domain name calls 'tip of the iceberg'
  The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has reported that a Swansea-based company offering an internet domain name registration service has agreed not to make misleading statements to businesses following enforcement action.
  The OFT received complaints that Internet Registrations Bureau Limited (IRBL), trading as Euro Web Designs, had contacted businesses informing them that a third party was interested in registering a domain name similar to their business name. The businesses were then invited to register the domain name with IRBL but were advised that they only had a short period of time in which to accept the offer or the domain name would be registered to the third party. When challenged by the OFT, IRBL was unable to provide evidence that any such third parties existed
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• Nominet revamps Whois
  The UK national registry of .uk domain name holders, Nominet has updated its Whois service. People who own a .uk domain name can now check whether their ISP has paid or renewed their registration or check when renewel is due by using the whois search box on the home page
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